


This is the first time I’ve told any cat how my mentor died.

by Bandtrees



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Gen, Original Character-centric, traditional names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 23:51:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13512351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bandtrees/pseuds/Bandtrees
Summary: No cat believes me.





	This is the first time I’ve told any cat how my mentor died.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my WA account here!: http://aminoapps.com/p/74a289 This was also my first attempt at writing in first person ^_^

No cat would ever believe me. Do I blame them? Well, no, not really. Any (true) story I tell would be written off as the overactive imagination of a scared kit. What cat would believe me, anyway? I told them Pebbleclaw slipped off the rocks at the sides of the creek when the wind got too rough and the waves too choppy. He was always too ambitious a hunter for his own good, after all. 

Everyone believed me. They had no reason to doubt, after all the territory had been experiencing rising waters, and the current swept everything away. Blood included.

They gave me a new mentor and acted like it was no big deal, and I reluctantly finished up my training, but the memories would stay with me forever. The truth of what happened that day would never leave me unless it got out, which I guess is why I'm telling you all this.

Pebbleclaw was one of the Clan's senior warriors. He was athletic, ambitious, and well-liked. The other apprentices all loved him, and everyone seemed to be envious of me being the kit chosen by him. I'm not sure what he saw in me, my lanky, tall, Half-Clan, tired-out self, but he saw it, and he was determined to make me as great a warrior as he was.

He was the kind of mentor every cat wanted. He was fun and cool to watch in training, always popping jokes that my mother would be pissed at if she overheard. I liked him. He pushed me to my limits, and I eventually grew out of my skinny long-legged kit body into a fine apprentice. 

We were catching fish at the rivers near the end of our territory. Pebbleclaw was always a natural hunter, and between the both of us we'd always catch more than we were able to bring back. That's how our excursions always went, watching the dark waters for fish and hooking them with our claws.

The wind was rough and biting, feeling like the claws of enemy cats raking across my body. It was cold, too, and even the fluffy pelt that ran in my family wasn't enough to shield me from the temperatures. There was a constant drizzle, rain harshly falling down and leaving the overwhelming scent of water and salt in my nose. My paws ached, and though I didn't want to tell Pebbleclaw, I was quickly growing nauseous.

Fish-hunting afternoons were usually my favorite, but with the harsh weather unlike anything I've felt before coupled with the sick rising in my throat, I'd much rather be curled up in my den.

Pebbleclaw no doubt saw my uneasiness, and inbetween blurs of my vision and the painful thorn-sharp wind, he pushed me a large brown fish he'd caught. I looked up at him, and I remember his brown-green eyes seeming to glow in the dark of what should have been the afternoon and, not wanting to grow more sick with food in my mouth, I politely declined the prey. He just laughed and shook his head.

Even in the middle of a pounding drizzle, I could safely call that moment the calm before the storm.

Pebbleclaw was preoccupied by watching the water and I could barely lift my head, so neither of us saw the massive black and brown dog standing across the river. The dog's scent hit me almost directly after I saw it, even though the rough weather-scent had protected me from it beforehand.

The dog's teeth were bared, its soulless black eyes glaring at us across the river's length. My mentor ordered me to get behind him, ushering me with his tail. The dog let out a low, rumbling growl, and then a sharp bark that reverberated through my very body. 

Then it began to approach, leering back before jumping into the water and swimming forward as if the crashing waves and harsh weather wasn't even a nuisance. Pebbleclaw looked back at me for a split moment as if even he was unsure what to do. He backed us up against a tree trunk, his gray tabby fur raised up and making the already massive tom look about twice as large.

I couldn't speak. I couldn't even shiver. The twists in my stomach and pounding headache seemed to go away, overruled by my body's pure, unadulterated fear for the beast that was getting closer by the moment. 

We didn't run as it reached the shore, I imagine out of fear it would pursue us. It bounded out of the water, and as it stopped to shake out its pelt its eyes were only on us. Its claws scraped the wet stone of the shore bed, not even paying a glance at the pile of prey Pebbleclaw and I had caught.

It let out another shrieking bark, and I jolted. Its eyes honed in on me, and in a flash it bounded over and I could feel ginormous jaws clamping around the back of my neck just enough to hold me. Pebbleclaw let out a yowl I couldn't decipher the words of. The dog shook me like I was a rat, and when I screamed it threw me into the shallow, rocky waters of the river.

I didn't have time to register the water rapidly approaching, and I failed to close my mouth as I hit the sand with a gulping breath. Water and sand instantly entered my mouth and nose, and I was lucky enough to not get any rocks in there. I flailed my paws to bob myself to the surface, loudly coughing up the muddy water I'd ingested to the best of my effort.

Attempting to unblur my vision and take in where exactly in the river I'd ended up, I heard Pebbleclaw hiss. I whipped around, a sharp stab of pain in my neck and shoulder as I did, to see the gray tom with his claws extended and hazel eyes seeming to glow in the dark, cloudy daylight.

I sputtered more mud out of my windpipe as Pebbleclaw lunged for the dog, latching onto its chest and scratching at it. His claws left gashes on the dog's face, desperately shaking its head to get the tom off of it but to no avail. Despite my pain, hope for Pebbleclaw's victory swelled in my chest. 

That only lasted a moment though, as the dog bucked its head up, throwing Pebbleclaw a long length I had to turn in the water again to see. There was a thud and a moan of pain from him, and he shakily got to his paws as I noticed blood streaking from his forehead. The dog loomed above him, and the world seemed to go in slow motion as both of them leaped for each other.

I shakily paddled forward in the freezing water, getting closer only to see the dog twist its body to bite down on Pebbleclaw's midsection. My mentor screeched as the cracking of bones split through the howling wind, and was flailing his paws to try and get the dog's iron grip off of him.

But nothing could stop the assault, and I could only watch in sheer horror as the fight in Pebbleclaw's eyes faded and his scarlet life force bubbled beneath the dog's teeth.

Then there was nothing. The before unbearable wind and rain dulled in comparison to the pounding of my heart in my chest. No sickness in my head, break in my shoulder, or sand in my throat could compare to the sheer loss and helplessness I felt in that moment.

The dog slammed Pebbleclaw down onto the rocks, and only then did I see the wound in Pebbleclaw's torso the dog's muzzle had been previously blocking from my view. I felt so scared, and so alone seeing the tough mentor I'd been hunting with only short moments (though they felt like a lifetime) ago bleed out onto the rocks. My fur was flattened by the water, and I was shivering wildly. My teeth clicking together was near the only thing I could hear in that moment. 

Then the dog turned its head to me. I gulped- I was ready. I stared back at it, though I couldn't have been too intimidating to it. But I swam towards the dog, unsheathed my claws, and stood my ground.

If I was to die in that moment, Pebbleclaw would be proud of me taking it like a true warrior.

The dog growled and walked towards me, and while I wasn't as religious as our medicine cats, I thought a prayer to StarClan as the dog became face to face with me, its hot breath becoming foggy air against the chill of the wind. Then it threw its head forward as it had with Pebbleclaw, knocking me back into the water. I landed on my side, and the crack of my jaw against the water's rocks reverberated in my head. I could feel blood bubble from the break, but I wasn't going down that easily. The dog galloped towards me, and I jumped forward at the canine and scratched and kicked with all my might.

To my surprise and forever relief, the dog let out a yelp as it realized I wasn't worth the fight, and with a kick from my hind leg into its eyes, it pushed me away and skidded back.

The air was knocked out of me as I hit the rocks, but the dog wasn't going to hurt me. I raised my head to see the dog growling at the shore, and it grabbed Pebbleclaw's body in its teeth and bounded in the opposite direction.

The high from realizing I was alive lasted only a moment as I realized I was in freezing water. I crawled out of the river, shaking out my pelt and moaning in pain as the adrenaline of the past few moments wore off and left me with nothing but pain. I shivered as my bloody jaw and shoulder pounded in pain, and I had to decide what I was going to do.

I figured if I jumped back into the water and tried to swim back to my camp, I would drown or bleed out on the way home. I stumbled my way to the Clan on this side of the river. I let out a weak yowl and almost immediately fainted, but one call was all I needed.

I stayed with that Clan for about a moon, and I managed to return home as soon as my injuries were decently healed. The Clan mourned the loss of Pebbleclaw and always would, given all he'd done for the Clan. His death was a noble one, giving up his life to save me.

I still get nightmares of dog teeth, ribs splintering, and pounding rain, but telling the story without sugarcoated lies has really helped me. I hope I'll be on the road to healing, but it's hard to heal when nobody knows what the matter is. 

I finished up my training. My new mentor, Rainheart, wasn't the same, but he tried, bless his soul. I managed to grow, and no cat ever knew why I froze up at the scent of dog more than anyone else, or why the sound of a stick breaking seemed to bring me to tears. 

It didn't help matters that my warrior name turned out to be Jackalstream.


End file.
